I’ll not comment on the particulars of PoppyGate, other than to offer this: the president of the Royal Canadian Legion’s P.E.I. command was quoted by the CBC as saying “The people who are distributing these poppies are normally people who have never spent a day in the service of their country in their lives.”
Leo Broderick and his band of co-conspirators may be disrespectful, irreverent, iconoclastic, controversial, and somewhat tone-deaf as to how to effectively manipulate public opinion, but I challenge you to name me a group of more intensely patriotic people.
We each serve our county in different ways.
Comments
While I would never wear a white poppy in place of a red one, and don’t tend to think highly of those who do, the men and women who have fought for our country, to whom the red poppy is dedicated, fought for our freedoms. The red poppy is a symbol of the lives lost fighting those campaigns. One of the biggest freedoms we’ve achieved is free speech. While the distribution of a white poppy is free speech, Broderick seems to be missing the fact that were it not for those we honour with the red poppy, he’d be in a prison camp for his actions. Broderick and his gang absolutely have a right to distribute their white poppies, even if they completely miss the point of the red poppy campaign.
Absolute hogwash.
History of white poppy -explained from 1920s/1930s women’s groups
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W…
The Royal British Legion has no official opinion on the wearing of white poppies, stating that it “is a matter of choice, the Legion doesn’t have a problem whether you wear a red one or a white one, both or none at all”. [4]
Tim Goddard, father of Nichola Goddard
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/cont…
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/princ…
This has been a crazy and needlessly divisive debate not helped by CBC which told story in divisive way, did not explain the history of white poppy and inflamed opinion — The Island Peace Committee (larger than just one person) has distributed white poppies for last number of years with nary a complaint — most people recognize that we need to work for peace and invest in peace and that the majority of those kiilled in wars (over 90%) are civilians these days -cannot understand how a white poppy disrespects our soldiers (The Legion cliams it has ownership/copyright on poppy symbol -we can debate the validity of that but knee jerk reaction against wearing a white poppy , an action that has taken place for generations in England is scary and disturbing) — I prefer to wear both red and white poppies and was honoured to have attended a function honouring Nichola Goddard on weekend as well as raise money for Light Up Papua New Guinea as well as remember deceased members of my Family killed in World War I at Charlottetown Rural -this week is also anniversary of Lester B. Pearson’s peacekeeping idea !
I suspect the Legion president meant to suggest Leo has never been “in the Service” — as in, the Armed Forces — implying that if he had served, he would understand how disrespected the Legion felt. I don’t think he meant to say Leo wasn’t a patriot.